~ Loving life and trying to create something beautiful everyday!

Monthly Archives: November 2012

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! We spent the holiday with my grandparents at their home Utah and had a great time. I have many pictures of our trip and will be posting some of them soon. But right now, I want to share with you something that I made for dinner tonight.

This recipe is a family favorite from waaaay back: Pizza Chicken! It’s really just Parmesan Chicken, but as kids we called it Pizza Chicken because well, it’s like pizza but with chicken instead of dough. Simple enough, right? Life’s not so simple anymore, being a grown-up and all, but I can still make my Mom’s Pizza Chicken and feel like I’m sitting at my parents’ dinner table with my biggest worry being my 6th grade report on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (how do I remember doing that report?!! It was a fun one!).

I didn’t take an ingredients photo for this recipe. My best friend called me while I was getting ready to cook dinner and the next thing I knew I was talking and cooking and dinner was halfway done before I remembered to grab my camera! My measurements listed here aren’t exact as this recipe is one I learned from literally watching my mom make it and I’ve never measured a thing when making it myself. If you’re a bit of a control freak and the whole no measuring thing bugs you, take a breath, pour some wine, it’s cool. This will be deliciousness at it’s comforting best, I promise. Here are the ingredients you’ll need:

Grab a deep skillet and pour in enough canola or vegetable oil to cover the bottom. Put it over med-high heat and preheat the oven to 350F. Don’t forget to pour some wine. Cooking with wine and some good music is good for your soul, I’m a firm believer. Now you’ll put the flour on one plate, beat the eggs and milk in a bowl and put the bread crumbs on another plate. You’re going to work in a bit of an assembly line here. Dredge a piece of chicken in flour, then dip it in the egg mixture, then dredge it in the bread crumbs, THEN place it in the skillet. Make sure the oil is hot enough before you put it in. It should be hot enough to sizzle when you drop in a few crumbs to test, but it should NOT be so hot that it’s smoking. Smoking oil is bad! As is burned butter and garlic, but I’m getting off track now. Once the chicken is nicely browned on one side, use tongs to flip it over. Be careful working with the hot oil, especially if you have kids, a dog, and a cat who don’t know what “stay out of my kitchen!!” means! You’re going to finish cooking the chicken in the oven, so only brown it in the skillet, don’t fully cook it.

Repeat dredging, dipping, dredging again and then browning the chicken pieces until all are browned. Remove each piece as they are finished browning and place on a plate of paper towels to soak up excess oil. When all the chicken pieces are done place them on a cookie sheet sprayed lightly with some cooking spray. Now, spoon some spaghetti sauce on top of each piece of chicken. Use as much or as little as you’d like. Then top that off with as much or as little shredded mozzarella as you’d like. About this time, realize that you’re talking on the phone so much your jaw is about to lock up and grab your camera to finally snap a few photos!

Things are looking delicious up in here!

Once all the chicken pieces are covered with sauce and cheese, pop that cookie sheet in the oven. If you’re using only thighs they will cook off fairly quickly. It usually takes mine about 15 minutes in the oven at 375F to reach 180F on the meat thermometer. Breasts are typically much thicker and will take longer to cook, maybe closer to 30 minutes. Please please please check the chicken with a thermometer or by cutting into it before you serve. I have one of those digital meat thermometers that you can place in the oven and the receiver on the outside of the oven will beep when your food is close to being done. They’re pretty affordable, around $20 or so, and I really recommend getting one to anyone who cooks a lot. When the chicken is done, take it out of the oven to cool for a bit while you finish any sides you might be making to go along with it.

Almost time to eat! The sides that are still cooking on the stove: steamed broccoli, garlic sauteed spinach, and fettucini alfredo (from a box, I have to admit!).

Once everything is done, refill your glass of wine and dinner is served! This dish has been devoured by everyone I’ve ever served it to, kids and adults alike!

For those of you without a thermometer, this is what your chicken should look like in the middle when it’s done. Please don’t get salmonella, it ain’t fun!

I have to put my food on a small plate like I give to my kids to keep from overeating! So yummy!

I hope that some of you make this soon and that you enjoy it as much as my family and friends do!

Go……….create something beautiful today!

-Heather

I’m linking up over at The 36th Avenue…go check out the other great links there! Good stuff as always!

It seems that I never have photos of my WIPs ready for WIP Wednesday so I’ve only participated in a few posts for it. Actually, I almost forgot that today is Wednesday! This short week is throwing me off since the boys didn’t have school on Monday. But I realized soon enough what day it was and that I had two things to share with you all today.

This is the start of Prince Fluff. As you can see, I am super fancy with my paper clip stitch markers.

The first is Prince Fluff which I am making for C. I mentioned in my last post that I was working on these cute little guys for my little guy and they’re turning out great. Prince Fluff is from the video game Kirby’s Epic Yarn. C loves it, I have to seriously monitor that boy’s game time otherwise he would play it ALL the time! So, I finished Kirby the other night and gave him a face, and now I just need to finish up Prince Fluff. It’s a super easy and well-written pattern from Nerdigurumi which you can find here. The only problem is that my hand starts to hurt after just a little bit of hooking because I am trying to crochet tightly so I don’t have to worry about the stuffing coming out.

Now that I’ve started making some amis, the requests are just pouring out from my boys for their favorite characters. I am sure you’ll be seeing a few more amis from me in the future if my kids have any say in the matter! And of course they do.

The other thing I’m working on today is a sample from a crochet chart that I found online. I have an idea bouncing around in my head for another infinity scarf and I’ve been trying to find a stitch pattern that is similar to what I have thought up. I’ve never attempted to crochet from a chart, but I didn’t think it could be too hard. It’s pretty easy actually!

The chart for this is in Japanese, so I have no idea what this is called! But I think I really like it!

So I’m wondering….what do you guys think of this? I know it’s a super small sample, but I’m looking for input. I really like this stitch pattern and I’m thinking of either incorporating it into another infinity scarf or making a pair of fingerless gloves with it. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d love feedback in the comments about which you’d rather see a pattern for in the future. Hopefully I can write it up in a way that makes sense. There are these weird twisty double crochets in there that took me a minute to figure out, but I eventually got it. I may have a call for pattern testers later on if I do decide to make a pattern with this! I’d hate to give you guys something that’s all crazy and confusing!!

I’m off to go make some enchiladas for dinner. Now that football season is over for us (T’s team made it to the first round of playoffs, but we lost this past weekend) I can actually cook more than only twice a week or so. It’s nice not to eat leftovers every night of the week because of the crazy practice schedule!

How is everybody today? I’m loving the weather we have happening here, it’s finally cold and feeling like Fall in So Cal. I know, we don’t really have “seasons” here, just cool and hot really, but I have been soooo ready for some cool weather!

Today, I want to show you all a super cute project that I finished a couple months ago. I’m a procrastinator, big time, but the reason it’s taken me so long to show this one off is that I was going to give it away as a baby shower gift. But I never did. I’m a little sad that it’s so cute and just sitting in one of my yarn bags. But eventually I’ll give it away to a little cutie and hopefully they’ll love it.

I got the idea from KendraKat on Ravelry. I made my pillow ball just like she explains on the project page for hers. Please check it out here for the instructions to make your own.

The squares are made of one of my favorite motifs which is the Sunburst Granny Square. I only completed the first 4 rounds of the pattern to achieve this size. I really do love this square and one of my WIPs right now is a pillow made of them. I have enough for the front side and a couple done already for the back. I can’t wait to finish it and put it on my couch!

Anyhow, here are a few more pictures of how this project came together:

The liner would have been a lot faster to make had I been able to use my sewing machine. It needs to be serviced, I’ve been a bad owner.

I stuffed it really full so it would be more of a ball shape and less of a cube shape. These squares had to STRETCH!

I’m also working on a few toys for my boys. I had never made any toys yet with my crochet and I’m just finishing up my first amigurumi. I don’t know why it took me so long to start one, but I finally did. C requested that I make him a Kirby and a Prince Fluff from the video game Kirby’s Epic Yarn. How oddly fitting, huh? Kirby is done, but faceless. I will hopefully get Prince Fluff done today or tomorrow and then I can give them both faces. Right now, C is playing with Kirby but making him run into things because he has no eyes.

I’m hoping you’re all having a lovely day wherever you may be! Now go……..create something beautiful today!

I have recently decided to try to start making some of my cleaning products at home. I don’t know why I waited so long to give it all a try. After all, it saves money and of course it is safer for my family. I decided that I would start with making my own dishwasher detergent. I made my recipe after combining a few recipes available from Crunchy Bettyhere and here.

The reason I decided to start with my dishwasher detergent is two-fold. First, what we use to wash our dishes ultimately ends up in our mouths. Sure, it’s a pretty small amount but we still ingest it everyday.

The second reason is kind of scary and a little late being that it happened about 3 years ago, but C actually ate part of a packet of commercial dishwasher detergent when he was about 15 months old. First things first, he was fine and had no harm whatsoever (except that he did throw it up) and second YES I had and still have child locks but he managed to get his little hand in the cupboard with the lock engaged while I was in another room. I came in and saw what happened and ran (literally RAN) to the phone and called Poison Control who scared me even more when they said the words “chemical burns”. We went to the ER and they checked him out right away. He was just fine, but the doc gave him a juice box and had us stay for about 45 minutes to make sure he kept it down. We went home and the first thing I did was move the detergent and anything else harmful from under the sink to a high shelf in the garage.

Now, if I had even thought at the time that I could have made my own dishwasher detergent that would have been safe for my family I totally would have. I guess it just never occurred to me. And C isn’t going to be trying to munch on anymore dishwasher packets being that he’s 4 now but better late than never, I suppose.

Okay, so after all that rambling……..ready for the ingredients? Here you go:

Combine all ingredients in a container and there you go! You will want to add the essential oil several drops at a time and then stir it up really well after each addition.

You’ll fill your wash compartment with it each time you run your dishwasher. Also, fill your rinse well with white vinegar to help reduce film on your clean dishes.

Okay, so now for a couple notes on the ingredients here:

1. As noted in the ingredients list, you can use citric acid in place of the Lemi Shine. This is to reduce film on your dishes. Don’t skip it, you can see why in the photos near the end of this post. The only reason I didn’t use citric acid is because I couldn’t find it and I really didn’t want to have to pay for shipping by ordering online. But here’s the thing about Lemi Shine….they don’t tell you what’s in it. The bottle says that it is made with “real fruit acids and natural citrus oils”. So of course, I was skeptical of using it without doing some research first. I found this website which totally put my mind at ease, though. Basically a chemist had the same question I did, so he performed a bunch of tests on Lemi Shine. The results? It’s nearly identical to citric acid which we know is safe. Check out the website and the reports that have been posted there.

2. In my own detergent, the Lemi Shine makes it all clump together pretty badly. I’ve read similar reports with the citric acid, although I haven’t used it. As long as it’s all mixed up really well when you put all the ingredients together, it shouldn’t be an issue. I just scoop it out with a spoon and fill my wash compartment. So if you make this and then tomorrow it’s practically rock hard, that’s okay. It will still work just fine.

3. Is borax really safe? I’ve read so much in my research on homemade cleaning products about borax being toxic. It seems many people have it confused with boric acid which it is not. The best article I have come across that addresses this is again on Crunchy Betty. You can find it here. Check it out, read it for yourself and decide how you feel on using borax. I think it’s fine. Also, read this one about a little girl who ate homemade dishwasher detergent that is almost identical to my recipe (including the mysterious Lemi Shine!). She’s fine. Didn’t even have to go to the hospital, but still read it if you have any concerns about your little ones.

Now, you’re probably wondering, how clean will my dishes look after I run my dishwasher? I have pictures! The first time I tried this, I didn’t use Lemi Shine or citric acid. Like I said before, I couldn’t find citric acid and I was wary of Lemi Shine. But when I saw what my dishes looked like, I knew I needed something which is what prompted all of my research on Lemi Shine.

Yuck! Imagine my disappointment when I ended up with a full dishwasher looking like this!

This is with the vinegar in the rinse well that I told you to use. But by itself, it just doesn’t cut it! So……in comes the Lemi Shine and the sparkly dishes!

See?! Sparkly clean!

Now, I’m sure you have one more question. How much money does this save? A lot!! Okay, so that’s not a number. Well, the washing soda cost me about $4.50 for 55 oz at Ace Hardware. 76 oz of Borax was $3.50 and 12 oz of Lemi Shine was $3.66, both at Walmart. Salt I had on hand but I’d say it was probably about 2.50 for the 17.6 oz container and the essential oil was on sale for $3.50 for 1 oz at Sprouts.

The most expensive ingredient was Lemi Shine, I used 8 oz of it in one batch which cost $2.44. I used 8 oz of Borax which would cost about $0.37 and the same amount of washing soda cost about $0.65! The essential oil was such a small amount, I’m not even sure how to calculate that. The salt would be a guess at about $0.60 for the 4 oz I used. So total cost for one batch is about $4.06. I’m going to have to update this post when I see how many loads one batch will wash.

I have also made my own laundry detergent and fabric softener but that is post for another day!